Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, have arrived at the KIA Academy, looking for information regarding the great Stone Horse of Destruction...
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Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout. Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers.
Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable, but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades.
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often. Previously "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies, but recently has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair.
Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend. He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters. Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does. No Name has recently been fitted for a artillery device of the Ancients that chucks spears further than any human. Looking for trouble in all the right places. Former jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock he has named Chambray.
RHA-9: A lab assistant piece of "Living Metal" that seems to have befriended the group... for now! Currently getting repairs done by the Restorationists.
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The party left the sunny confines of the Great Overpass and drove their rental e-cart into the heart of KIA Academy itself, following the living-metal sounding directions coming from the cart. Lathar followed behind on No-Name, and only lost a few spears for the spear hurler on No-Name's back in the brisk gallop.
The road beneath KIA Academy remained four lanes, going each way, traffic going both ways. Pedestrian bridges crossed overhead. Most of the citizens appeared human, and dressed in kimonos. Many stared at the shirtless man riding a six-legged reindeer on the road.
There were numerous blue signs everywhere, and a number of small ramps leading up to the living district. Finally the e-cart alerted Pete, "STAY LEFT FOR STATION PETRO."
Turning to the left, they left the main road and the canyon of buildings and back out into the open air, Another half mile, and they arrived what the cart called "Station Petro"
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| Station Petro |
Entering the cavernous door, the building was filled with different types of wheeled equipment of the ancient, and a few large piles of different substances, like rock or soil.
There was an area along the near wall, with a number of human-types milling about some tables, playing cards. Many wore jumpsuits and ridiculous helmets in bright colors that didn't not seem very useful.
One of the card players looked up and saw them, "Yo, welcome to Station Petro. Whadya need?"
Sonny inquired about the rumors of the Stone Horse.
"Before I can talk about the issue your inquiring about, I will need all the literate non-citizens to fill out this paperwork. You only need to enter name, race, and hometown, although any other information provided will help with our demographic data collection efforts here at KIA Academy."
Thankfully, none of the writing implements pinched them like the stylus did Pete at the e-cart rental.
"Alright, who leads your bunch?"
"It depends on the situation." Sonny replied.
"Well, who would be the leader when dealing with a large stone horse man that has destroyed many buildings and taken many lives."
"Yo" was all Lathar said.
"Okay, long-hair, we need you to take care of our friend Charlie."
"Who's Charlie"
"Charlie was one of the employees here at Station Petro before he turned to stone and started going crazy."
"Was he always a horse?" Sonny inquired.
"Yeah, and a strong one too, sometimes he'd take care of a task all by himself before the equipment arrived. Good guy. We don't know what necessarily happened. One day he was a regular talking horse, the next he was a silent stone horse."
"Like real stone?" Pete questioned.
"Yeah, you know the guys protecting the granaries with the boom sticks? Those won't even touch him. He was working with the crew, doing a good job keeping the travelers from interrupting our construction. We thought he had went off to the little horse's room, but he vanished. He went from brown horse one day to grey stone pissed-off horse the next."
"And he stared rampaging and leaves?"
"Yeah, we've encountered him a few times, nothing but destruction, not like he's stealing stuff or looking for stuff. And by the time the militia and police show up, he's long gone. Our manpower is meant to for maintenance and repair, we care getting behind on our regular projects trying to fix things."
"And do we have to bring him back alive?" Pete asked.
"A couple of the guys say he owes them money, but I don't care... Find me some proof that he's healed or destroyed, and I'll pay 5,000 domars or some equipment. I don't know the domar conversion rate right now."
Sonny inquired about talking to the scientists. The foreman agreed to put in a good word to get him some access.
"Where should we start?"
"You might want to talk to the family, Charlie Onyxhoof had a nice family. I'll give you directions to their place."
Vinn, the foreman of Station Petro provided directions to Charlie Onyxhoof's family as well as the Festival Hotel to stay the night,
"Not everybody takes your domars, any of you get chipped?"
"Yes," a disgruntled weasel answered.
"Good, we can convert and upload some money onto that chip. Just make sure you cash out before seven days."
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